Hi Folks, Like a lot of people that must go searching for
help, guidance and assistance, I have found myself here, staring at a blank
page not knowing where to start really? What I do know for certain is that I
need to start somewhere, so here goes:
I am 50yrs young and married to a Lady that I absolutely
adore, I know it is a well-used cliché but she really is my best friend. We have been married 5 years but have been
together for 9.
I have a previous marriage as does my Wife. When I moved in with my wife (8 years ago) I
took on three children (I have 4 children from my previous marriage) we knew
that 7 children from two different marriages was always going to be hard work,
but well worth the hard work.
For a number of years this worked well and all children got
on well with the odd squabble as any normal person would expect.
A MAJOR stumbling block when my wife and I got together was
my now Sister-In-Law. This lady was a
good close friend of mine (purely 100% plutonic). I met my wife through my then friend.
Once my wife and I started our relationship, my friendship
with her sister broke down totally, not on my behalf but wholly on her behalf. My Wife’s sister (once friend of mine)
refused to speak to me, did nothing but bad mouth me to everybody, accused me
of ending any chance that her Sister had of patching things up with her Ex
Husband and caused no end of problems for my wife and I.
This escalated to the point where she (Sister -In- law) has
refused to speak to me, completely blanks me, and refuses to come to our house,
she has caused a tremendous amount of stress between the whole family and has
caused a reversible wedge between two sisters.
My Sister-in-law is a single lady (in her 40’s) and has
never been married nor has she ever been in a steady relationship that has
lasted for any length of time, she gets under the skin of her parents and has
over the years turned their parents against me also.
To the point that during our Wedding plans, my wife asked
her Father to walk her down the aisle. At
which point this offer was declined stating that not only will he not walk his daughter
down the aisle, but he won’t be attending the wedding because his other
daughter has refused to attend. The end
result was my wife’s Mother attended the wedding but her Father and Sister did
not!
My so called sister-in-law has throughout the last 9 years
played the role of the poor done to one; she has poisoned my name and constantly
enjoyed causing as much unrest as she can.
This has destroyed my wife, who has ALWAYS refused to let rip at the
situation for fear of upsetting her parents any more than they obviously are at
the moment with this whole saga.
My In laws live 7 doors down from us, so we are never far
away from this fractious situation. My Step Children have NEVER been
discouraged from seeing their Grandparents or their Aunty.
My eldest Step son, decided at the age of 16 to go and live
with his Dad (Dad has a huge house with all the trimmings) he stated at the
time that he just wanted to have a bedroom of his own and some more space. This broke his Mum’s (my wife) heart as she
did not want him to go, but at the age of 16 there was little that she could do
legally and with support and acceptance this would probably be the best thing
for the boy as our house was overcrowded and we could not give him what he
wanted.
Over the last three years, this boy has come round to see
his Mum less and less, even at one point hurling insults at his Mum, stating
that she “was and is a terrible Mother to do what she has done with him (meaning
me!) Leaving his Dad for THAT” he does not see her at Birthday, Xmas etc
My Step Son has now developed an unhealthy hatred of me
(fuelled somewhat by his lovely Aunty) he will NOT speak to me; he ignores me
if I ever see him in the street. His
Mother and I have bumped into him whilst we have been out and about; he does
just enough to say that he hasn’t ignored his Mum, but he does not even
acknowledge my presence.
This Step son will still visit his Grandparent and Aunty,
but makes no effort to see his Mum. His
Mum (my Wife) only gets chance to see him, if she happens to call in to her Mum’s
house and even then it is only ever for minutes.
Prior to this boy leaving home and going to his Dad’s, we
had a number of situations where he had been online late at night (a 15yr old
boy online late at night, you can guess the type of sites he was
browsing). What became quickly apparent to
me, was the sites that he was browsing were Gay **** Sites. His Mother and I discussed these findings and
took the viewpoint that if he is Gay, so be it! So long as he is healthy, safe
and well, he will get nothing but support, love and help from his Mother and I.
His Mother and I talked to the boy about this and he was told
categorically that he had our whole hearted support. His viewpoint was that he was just looking…. Who could blame a boy of 15 for coming out with
a defensive comment like this, we knew that and decided to let him decide what
and when, but rest assured that whichever road he decided to go down, we would
be by his side.
This boy now at the age of 19 nearly 20 has now decided to
Come out, his father has gone berserk and had major fall outs with this boy,
even to the point of physical impact. His
Father has thrown in my Wife’s face that it all her fault for letting him watch
“Will & Grace” This GUY is
homophobic fool who is lost in the dark ages and can’t see the damage he is
causing to his Son.
I on the other hand are not allowed to get involved and my
offers to have him back home have all fallen on deaf ears. He was due to go away to University in
September of this year. He was offered a
holiday two weeks prior to his date set to move to University. He did not have enough spending money to go
on Holiday and was about to miss out. Like
a buffoon, I pay for this even after all the flack I have taken; I still pay
for him to go on holiday. My thoughts on
this are simple; he was a Child at 15 even still childish now and one day when
he grows up, he will realise is errors and come back around.
I even bought him things to take away to University, I set
his Mum up on my Skype account so that she could contact him whilst he is at
University, only to have a message back on Skype saying “Hi Mum change the name
on this account I REALLY REALLY REALLY don’t like it”
Now to make things even worse…… Another one of the Step Sons has decided
that HE now wants to go and live at his Dad’s and this boy is only 15. There have been noises made by this boy that
he would now like a room of his own at his Dad’s and now that his Big Brother
is moving away to University, he can now have a room of his own at his Dad’s so
that he wouldn’t have to share a room with my Boys every other weekend when
they come to stay.
His Mum (My Wife) was again torn apart with this and as you
can imagine.
During this period, there had been some bad feeling between
my boys and this particular Step Son, name calling etc.
During one heated discussion surrounding this, the Step Son
came steaming into the kitchen, whilst his Mum and I were talking (rowing really!)
and started screaming at me to get out of the House, we all hate you and nobody
has ever liked you, needless to say this escalated and he, the 2nd
Step Son stormed out of the house and has now moved in with his Dad.
This was exactly what he wanted in the first place and it
has all fallen very nicely for him. He
is a very manipulative little boy, who has always wanted to be the centre of
attention. He constantly craves
attention and has throughout the last few years, left one school to attend
another, as this other school had a
better reputation and somewhat snooty stigma attached to it. He attended this school for a year or so, and
then decided that he did not like that school due to the names that he was
getting called, so once again he run away from that situation and back to his
original school.
He is constantly changing his hair colour and from time to
time speaks with a different accent (over exaggerates his words to try to speak
in his words “more posh!”)
As I have stated earlier, he had started making noises about
going to live in the big house with his Dad and he knew his Mum did not want
this, he also knew that he would look bad in everyone’s eyes if he simply left,
so the argument fell right into his lap and he grasped it with both hands and
he left.
He now will not come around to the house whilst I am there
and has said that unless his Mum and I split up, he will never come back. He is safe in some respects saying this,
because he knows that his Mum and I will not split up, but that again gives him
the ammunition that he needs to scorn bad things against his Mother and I.
The BIG problem that we are encountering at the moment is
that his Mum (my Wife) does not want her relationship with her 2nd
son to go as sour as the other relationship went. She wants to See her second son as much as
she can, and I ENDORSE this whole heartedly.
When he first moved out 4 months ago, she used to see him on
a Monday after school, a Thursday and Friday after school, he would come back
to the home knowing that I wouldn’t be there ( I don’t get home from work until
7pm)….ONCE AGAIN, I AM TO BLAME FOR EVERYTHING…. My wife has sat down with the second and
first Step Son and asked them to explain what it is that I have done that is so
bad….NEITHER of them can give her a justifiable answer, other than “we don’t like
him”
It suits this second Step Son, to create a whole new façade about
how bad I am and how he now can’t be with his Mum because of me. What is now happening is that people have
accepted that he has moved out, so therefore he no longer needs to play the
pretence of coming around to see his Mum.
I see the PAIN written all over my Wife’s face, when I get home from
work and I know that she has not seen this boy again.
My wife has spoken to the third child (17yr old Step
Daughter) and simply asked her “as a Mother have I really missed something
here, is he that bad that I haven’t seen it as a Mother due to my love for him
as a Husband?” To which my Step Daughter
has commented “there is nothing wrong with him, and I refuse to get drawn into
bad mouthing him, just because it suits others, he has never done anything
other than give love and support to all of us, but SOME people chose not to see
it because they are happier to do that”
This 17yr old girl has a tiny room in a house that has had 4
other boys in it and never complained once about it.
So why have I decided to write all this down?
I don’t know what to do or how to support my wife through
all this hurt, I think and feel as if I am doing the right thing, but it ends
up back firing all the time. I too am
struggling with all of this hurt. It is
me that everybody has turned against and my Wife tries desperately to keep a
relationship with her Sister, her Father and her 2 Sons. They all met up at the Grand Parents house,
but I HAVE to be excluded.
At no point does my Wife ever discuss this situation with
anybody else but me, if I say the wrong thing, we end up rowing about it and
once again it appears that it is me who has the problem. It is not me who has turned my back on her;
it is not me who has put her through hell on earth.
My Wife is scared to fall out with her sons as she NEEDS to
have a relationship with them. They have
both been VILE to me recently and yet she will NOT take this up with them, as
she has very little time with them and what little amount of time she does
have, she is fearful that if she brings anything up about me and the way they
have behaved, she will not see them again for weeks!
I feel as if everybody can hurl insults at me and everybody
SIL, FATHER in Law, Step Sons can all say what they want and get away with
it. I never get to defend myself or have
my say, to anybody but my wife, which in turn ends up with my wife and I
stewing over everything and invariably falling out over it again.
I don’t know where to turn with this, I agree that my Wife
needs to see her Sons, more so the second one as the first one is 300 mile away
at University but surely she must be allowed to lay down some ground rules and
timescales. What is starting to creep in
is that he is not making any effort to see his Mum during the week, but has
started calling on Sat to see his Mum, or should I say, he is calling on a
Saturday when he needs something i.e. a lift somewhere or some more hair colour
etc. He knows his Mum will not say NO
and he also knows that this is taking his Mum away from our time together at
the weekends. He is not stupid, far from
it, but he is a user and he is using his mum like an old spanner.
I am not silly enough to think that I have done nothing
wrong, I may well not be perfect and I may not have a bucket full of Money to
throw around. But equally I have never lifted
one finger towards my Step Children or any of the Children come to that matter,
I have never lifted a finger towards my Wife.
I have always worked. I never go out drinking on my own, if I ever go
out it is always with my Wife. I have
never taken drugs and have never as much as looked at anybody else in the time
that my wife and I have been together.
It tears me apart seeing my wife get hurt like this and it
also annoys me beyond words that I have been portrayed as piece of Muck, but I
have no say in the matter. I can’t say
anything to the Sister-in law, the Father or the Step Sons. I end up talking to my Wife and all she
thinks is that we should just say nothing and get on with life.
The BIG issue to me, is that my Wife goes to her Mums house
and meets up with the father, her Sons and her Sister, I feel as though she is condoning
all their behaviour and this frustrates me and upsets me that they all get away
with it and yet my wife just accepts it and smiles on the outside to them
all. When she gets home, I see the real
hurt inside her.
I feel as though I need to support my Wife and give her all
the help that I can….My problem is that where do I turn to for support.
My wife says she understands that I am hurting and she hates
it also, but she must see her Sons. My
Wife states that she feels as though she is walking on egg shells and is
constantly trying to please everybody, she feels as if I do NOT want her to see
her Sons…this is wrong, I do accept that she should see them even though they
are being Childish and horrible, what I ABSOLUTELY HATE is the fact that they
ALL use her when it suits and once again it is made to look like me that is
doing wrong as I am the one who says something to my Wife, who in turn thinks
that I am not agreeing that she should see them.
I am totally lost with it all and don’t know which way to
turn and constantly swap between wanting to scream and wanting to burst into
tears.
I often think how much easier it would be for my Wife and
her Family if I wasn’t around. Is my
love for her that great that I should just walk away? I know that my wife does not want our
marriage to end and I know that she truly not only loves me, but is actually IN
LOVE WITH ME, but what should I do.
I feel as if I am not doing enough to help her and support
her, I feel as if I should protect her from all the hurt. If we had a situation outside of the Family
and there was an individual that was hurting my Wife as much, I would seriously
wipe the floor with them, but I can’t express my true feelings of frustration
as it IS HER Family and I do not want to make things any worse for her.
I feel totally alone in this and lost, I am normally the
type of person who can departmentalise things and cope well, I solve problems
for a living and yet I feel totally inadequate with all this.
I fear that my Wife and her WHOLE family will regret all
this so much when the time comes to finally say goodbye to one of her Parents,
they will not be around forever and I know that a big fall will come when that
day arrives.
I would give a limb to have one day back with either of my
Parents (both deceased some time ago) and it frustrates me that this whole saga
is having a MASSIVE detrimental effect not only on my Lovely wife, but also on
her Parents, they did not ask for any of this hurt nor do they deserve any of
it, but it will not go away. I am
convinced that my Wife would not be happier without me; I don’t believe that
either of her Sons would return home to her and she would be even more alone
than she is right now.
You may well have noticed that I have not mentioned my
Children in any part of this and very little about my Step Daughter. I know that they are also struggling with all
of this going on around them and I know that they need constant support and
reassurance.
My eldest two children 25 & 21 have flown the nest and
are nicely settled with their respective partners, my eldest Girl has recently
become a Mother, so she is deeply engrossed in Motherhood.
My two Boys 16 & 15 still live with my Ex-wife, so I only
see them every other weekend.
I am really sorry about the length of this, but I started
typing and it all just came flooding out…..and trust me, this is only a tiny
portion of the past!
Can anybody advise what I should do? Do I need counselling? Does
my wife need counselling?, do we need counselling together?
Where the Hell do I turn, If Counselling is the correct approach,
I don’t even know that I can afford this financially, my Wife only works part
time and we struggle with Money every month (another worry!)
If anybody has got to the end of this I am really sorry for taking up so much of your time xx